


The stars said hello while I said goodbye

by Love_someone_special



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, F/F, Female Harry, Female Louis, Fluff, Genderswap, Girl Direction, Lesbian Character, Pining, Secret Crush, Unrequited Love, basically an impulse post because i love this fic with my whole heart so enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 18:07:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16045784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Love_someone_special/pseuds/Love_someone_special
Summary: Louis’ got red stained lips tonight. Harry can’t see them beneath the dark, but she knows they’re there. She watched her painstakingly apply the lipstick in the bathroom that evening. There had been a crease of red just beside her lips, and she’d smudged it away, the faint bloom of red falling onto her thumb.Louis moves away, away, away. Harry wants her to stay.





	The stars said hello while I said goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya Loves, 
> 
> This is my first girl direction fic. I originally wrote it with no intention of posting it without flipping it to guys, but turns out my heart wouldn't let me flip it. So here. Have an angsty girl direction fic. I want to write more of these, depending on what you guys all think, so feel free to give me all your thoughts. 
> 
> A brief little note to Rachelle, who keeps pushing me to be authentic, and endlessly reads my writing. Bless you.
> 
> Endless love to everyone who reads. 
> 
> L. xx

It’s an evening of light, and dark, Harry guesses. There’s sand that’s gritty in her hair and stars that feel like she could blow them out, if she only wanted to.

“Don’t you think,” Louis says, “Don’t you think the world might end?” She has her face tipped to the ocean, her hands splayed out for the stars to lick.

“Oh no. No, no, no,” Harry murmurs back, and she can feel those palms of Louis’, licked by the stars, come to rest on her knee cap. “I think that I wish it would.” Louis’ got red stained lips tonight. Harry can’t see them beneath the dark, but she knows they’re there. She watched her painstakingly apply the lipstick in the bathroom that evening. There had been a crease of red just beside her lips, and she’d smudged it away, the faint bloom of red falling onto her thumb.

“You can’t wish that.” Louis murmurs back to her, and Harry presses a hand to her own rib. Or maybe it’s Louis’ rib. They’ve come to share everything so often that she can’t tell where she starts and Louis ends. She doesn’t think they do. She doesn’t think Louis ends. She seems to have this eternal light. It’s like watching the sun, or something that hurts less to look at. It’s like watching the ocean. Calming. But terrifying the second you think what could be below the surface.

“Why the fuck not?” Harry asks, and it’s not cruel. It doesn’t sound the way anger should sound, indignance. It sounds like _I’m lost, and I want answers._ It sounds like _I’m hoping the map is engraved on your rib._

“Because.” There’s a shift of perfume, and Louis comes closer. Till ribs are both of theirs. “Because we’d end with it, stupid.” And then she’s falling away from Harry, and their ribs become separate, and she’s lying on the sand while Harry inhales the smell of her cigarette smoke. “You’d think, that one day, this smoke could just like, kill me. Wouldn’t you?” Louis sounds wistful. Her words curl out like the smoke does, and then drift into nothing. 

“I keep telling you that. It will kill you, one day, you know? It just, will.” She watches as Louis doesn’t stub the glowing end of the cigarette out. “Not that I care if you die, you’re a twat. But I kinda like having you and your twatinness around.” It’s words to deflate, to deflect, to act like she hadn’t seen the way Louis had slipped her shoes on tonight, the heel of her right foot rubbed red. Or the way she’d pulled her jeans up her thighs yesterday afternoon, skin rippling as the fabric clung.

Louis lets out a laugh. It’s a little melodious, but raw. It sounds like a Disney princess, if she smoked a pack a day. “Yeah. Gotta keep providing this world with my services.” She sounds wry, and the pack a day effect is gone. We’re back to Disney princess. She lets the cherry disappear into the sand. Harry pretends not to notice. “It’s fucked up, you know.” Is what she whispers. Harry doesn’t ask what Louis’ referring to. She knows she’ll tell her. “There’s nights where I’m like, I would pay half my world to be anywhere other than alone. And other nights, I’m like…” She trails off, lets her hand drift through the air, like she’s trying to replace the smoke of the cigarette she put out far too late. “I just wanna stay alone, you know?”

“Which one is it tonight?” She asks, because her hearts self-deprecating.

“It’s an alone night.” Harry presses her hand back to a rib. She knows it’s her rib this time.

“Guess I’ll be going then.” Harry teases, shifting slightly in the sand. The ocean echoes the sentiment, letting a wave hit the sand just below their vision. She’s teasing, and Louis knows it. There’s nothing intentional, not here. No reason to leave unless she asks. 

“Nah,” She sits back up in the sand, comes close enough that their ribs become theirs again, no Harry’s. No Louis’. “You count as me being alone.” Harry can smell nicotine on her, but its mixed with something sweet.

“You feel lonely with me.” It’s not a question. It’s not even a statement. The sky doesn’t know what it is, either.

“I feel like you’re so much a part of myself, that we’re like, always alone when we’re together. Just you and me. But like, there’s no you or me. It’s just us.” Louis’ struggling to put the sentences into words. It reminds Harry then, of the party they’ve abandoned. The one that’s taking place back at her own house, with too many people and a thrum of a bass. They ran from it, took the stairs two at a time and ducked down to the ocean. They’d had more alcohol than usual, but they were still an us. Effortlessly simple together.

“You say that like,” Harry pauses. The words get stuck in her throat. _Like you’re not in love with a boy._ “like I’ve agreed to this. Like you’re not a royal pain in the ass.”

Louis laughs, falls against Harry’s shoulder. Louis’ golden hair’s there, against Harry’s collarbone, and her chin bumps the place where Harry’s collar is splayed out. “You love me.” She stabs at the air with a pointer finger, draws a heart in the air for emphasise. As if Harry needed to know. She thinks how most girls taste. They always taste like… mouth. Like tongue and teeth. She wonders if Louis would taste the same. She doesn’t think she would. She thinks she might taste like gentle evenings. Or maybe a late afternoon. She can hypothesise the night away. There’s never going to be any data for her question.

Louis nudges her again, and there’s the briefest moment, where her lips brush Harry’s neck before she pushes Harry’s collar back into place. 

“What time are you going?” Harry asks, because pressure against her skin hurts more than it heals. Louis’ fingertips don’t leave the skin, just rest there, that wrist floating like its got a cigarette clasped in her hand. She doesn’t. There’s no cigarette. There’s just Harry.

She waits. Thinking. Apparently the sand over her toes helps the thoughts come out. “I think I might not.” She murmurs.

Harry feels Louis’ hair brush her collarbone. Her heads on Harry’s shoulder now. She wonders if she’s going to leave the body of that cigarette half buried in the sand when they stand to leave. 

“Might not what?” Harry knows what Louis’ saying, maybe. But she wants to hear it. She wants to hear it and wants the sea to hear it and the night air and she wants her never to be able to take it back because there’s too many witnesses.

“Might not go. I might just stay, if that’s okay. Forever.” 

Except. Harry realises. There are no witnesses. There is just her and the sand and nothing else that is listening. There’s no one who can hold Louis to that promise. God knows Harry could never hold her to anything. She could never press herself against Louis and wrap her hands round her wrists and murmur _you promised_ over and over. 

She will stay as she says she will. She’ll stay for tonight. And then she’ll go. Just like that. And the ocean and the night air and the sand will be sad, but they will not be surprised. They bore witness to her wanting to stay, and they will bear witness to her going. 

She shifts herself, entangling herself. “Is that okay?” 

Her voice is unsure, still Disney princess, but Disney princess prior to finding the prince. Disney princess in a tower with only a story book. 

Harry allows herself to bring this princess in, to wrap an arm round her soft waist. “You can always stay. No one’s ever going to force you to leave.” It’s immediately too heavy. Louis didn’t really want her permission. Harry knows what she wanted. Despite everything, she wanted Harry to tell her not to leave her imprints in the sand because her absence is too clear. She wanted her to tell her that if she left, Harry would still make a second cup of tea in the morning, just in case.

Despite everything, she wants to be reminded that Harry loves her. 

“Tell me.” Louis says. She can feel the press of Louis’ fingertips against the side of her neck now. They’ve climbed, tripped their way upwards. They’re unsteady, not used to the skin there. 

“Why are you so demanding.” 

“Nature.” She murmurs. Harry thinks how she’s never seen colours so bright in nature. There’s nothing like her in the trees or the grass. The ocean, maybe. Maybe somewhere in the water there’s a fish as bright as her. “Tell me.” It’s repeated, and her voice has grown lazy, the way it does after her alcohol has worn off slightly, but not enough. To the point where she’s soft and sleepy and her entire being moves against Harry’s like molasses. 

Harry hums softly, turning her chin so her lips rest against the top of Louis’ head. She can smell her perfume. Soft and sweet to match the gentle wave of her hair. “What’s that now?” 

A shiver runs through Louis’ whole body, those ghost ones that shake you to your very core, if only for a minute. “Tell me you don’t want me to leave. Tell me you want us to stay.” Harry brings her arm from around Louis’ waist to her shoulder. She leaves it there, the warmth from her hand carrying across to Louis. 

“You could walk away from me, every day. And I would still walk after you.” There’s so much truth in that. Too much. It aches to say. Louis pushes her though. Rolls her eyes and lets Harry fall back into the sand with a thud as she lets out that pack a day Disney laugh. Immediately, she’s on Harry, a hand brushing across Harry’s midriff, exposed by her linen top. 

“You’re full of shit, you know that?” She says, but she’s laughing. Her face is so close Harry can see the three freckles on her cheekbone as clearly as she can see the constellations, so, not very. They’re blurred from their proximity, but she knows they’re there. Right on the bridge of Louis’ nose. 

Harry lies there, for a moment. And she nods. Because Louis’ right. Anything she says is right, because she’s right. Because her existence is just so very right. 

Then Harry’s sitting up again, and Louis’ got her wrist under the palm of her hand and Harry’s wondering if perhaps the sky saw that if maybe someone somewhere saw this moment. Because this moment feels a little like love, almost. 

She had sat up though. She had sat up and brushed it off because right now in this existence it’s what she has to do. She picks up the words. She keeps them moving. She pretends like her heart doesn’t leap into her hand every time Louis’ skin brushes hers. 

“If I’m full of shit, than you’re an accomplice. Worse, you’re an enabler.” She accuses, poking and prodding Louis, her fingernails pressing in to the dip of Louis’ waist. It leaves the softest of crescents their, that fade in the moment Harry blinks.

“How is being an enabler worse than being an accomplice?” Louis laughs. Harry wonders if that laugh would survive in a jar, so that when Louis’ gone, when she does, inevitably, leave, she could listen to it, maybe, once more. Things that beautiful aren’t designed to survive though. 

She groans dramatically and rolls over, face down in the grit of the sand, feeling the way it rubs against her cheeks and slips up against her chin. She feels Louis move next to her, and then her face is up close to Harry’s, that Cheshire smile sneaking over it, soft crinkles at the edges of her eyes. Harry shifts her head, just slightly, so she can watch her with both eyes. “If we are going to continue to coexist, you have to stop questioning the things I say.” 

Louis rolls away again, and then she’s standing up, her bare heels sinking into the sand. It gives way to her, melds to her presence, the same way everyone who has ever met her does. The sand makes room for her, just like Harry does the moment she comes into a room. Her ability to occupy space may be her best quality. It could also be the singular freckle on the palm of her hand. Harry’s a little drunk.

“Come on, my co-existee. At some point, the common people wonder where all the royalty go.” Louis gestures to the path that will take them away from the beach, that will take them up to that house, filled with people who aren’t enough like her. For a moment, Harry considers not moving. She considers her own heart, and wonder if Louis would make her move if she told her part of herself was buried in this very sand. 

Instead, Harry clambers to standing, sways gently on her feet, and brushes the sand from her arms, and face, and hair. 

“Ah yes. Us royals have our duties.” She murmurs, and Louis links and arm around her, pulls her back against Louis’ side and for a moment there is no denying that Louis may occupy nearly every space in every room, but this spot, right here, under her shoulder beside her rib, this spot is Harry’s. 

She’s never tried to take it from her.

“Tiaras, parties, all that lark.” Louis’ British accent is terrible, and Harry’s not entirely sure she’s used the word lark correctly, but her eyes are too star shiney and her world a little too liquid happy to call Louis out on it.

“Gonna have to work on your accent if you’re going to live there.” Harry murmurs, maybe to herself. Maybe to Louis. Either way, it makes the liquid happy go. It makes Louis reach into her own pocket, and pluck out another cigarette.

“Guess that’s true.” 

Harry wants to take the words back. She wants to move back just a moment to that phoney British accent and respond with an equally bad one of her own. It’s too late though. She’s brought the thing they aren’t talking about up past her throat and it’s too late to shove it back down or pretend she’s forgotten what she’s losing here. What Louis’ losing. 

The thing is. Harry was always set to lose more. Louis will lose a friend. Who loves her. Who will sit with her when she’s drunk and contemplating life. A friend who will also help her when she’s sober and attempting to make her little brothers a birthday card that doesn’t so clearly spell out that she’s dyslexic. She’ll lose Harry. Yes. In some capacity. 

But that loss was never going to be the same as Harry’s. It just wasn’t. 

“Where have you gone?” She mumbles slightly, trying to keep the tip of the cigarette in between her lips as she speaks. She lit it, in some moment Harry forgot to notice. 

“England.” Harry answers, and Louis sighs. 

“We’ll still talk a lot, you know? Even when you’re bein a twat, I’ll still call you every day.” She says. Like it makes it better. Like her voice every day across an ocean, makes Harry’s love less painful to bear. It doesn’t. Harry reaches up, and takes the cigarette from Louis’ lips as they begin to walk up this path that feels too much like leaving and losing and growing the fuck up.

“You don’t smoke.” She says. She’s not going to fight Harry on it. Her tone is more surprised than anything. Maybe laced slightly with concern. But that’s all.

“I don’t.” Harry mutters, and she aims a kick at a clump of sand. Her bare toe goes straight through it, scattering it.

She does what she’s never done before, and lifts the cigarette to her mouth. She lets it sit there for a few seconds, feeling the weight of it against her lips. This is how it must feel for Louis, she realises. And then: this is as close as she may ever come to kissing her. 

She drags the smoke in. Her lungs are angry at her, they don’t like this invader. She coughs slightly, and Louis takes the cigarette back, perches it delicately between her two fingers before she taps Harry on the back lightly. 

“Some things aren’t made for everyone.” Her words are meant to be soothing. Which is stupid. Because cigarettes aren’t made for anyone. Mainly because they will kill you, if you get to know them well enough. If you give them the open invitation. 

“Like love.” Harry supplies, helpful in her internal conflict. Louis looks sad for a moment, and her mouth twists slightly as they come out onto the road, the moon less bright here, shaded by trees. 

“Yeah. But love’s made for you, at least.” 

“I don’t think so.” Harry shakes her head lightly, and she feels it dislodge more sand that trickles down her back. 

“I do. You out of everyone. You were made for love. You’ve got so much of it, somehow. I don’t know how you do it.” 

Harry can’t answer that, so she doesn’t. “Are you still leaving?” She asks instead. Like the answer could ever possibly change. 

“I am.”

Harry’s going to lose her. She’s going to lose her best friend and the girl she loves and the woman she should be able to see her become, so she can love that woman too. She’s going to lose laughter and purpose, and probably sleep. And Louis’ going to slip into bed every night across the ocean, and nothing’s going to make her think she needs Harry. 

“Is he still going with you?” If there was ever a time to put down the stake and not stab it through her own heart, it was the moment right before her lips formed that question.

“He is.” Louis’ voice changes when she says it. It becomes less Disney princess, more country singer. You can hear, in it, the knowledge of love. Of what it is to love someone, and by some godforsaken cosmic miracle, have them love you back. There’s no Disney princess naivety. No. This is the voice of a seasoned veteran of relationships. A girl who knows the kindness of love. Not just the pain of it.

Harry wants the stars and the moon and the trees that are now falling behind them to allow her hatred for her. For him. She wants, perhaps more so, to hold a hatred for them. But she doesn’t. She can’t hold Louis accountable.

“Good. Maybe he’ll be able to figure out how the trains work over there. God knows you won’t be able to.” She turns it into a joke because she loves Louis, and because she’d rather her happy with someone else than to be lost like her, loving a world and a girl that has never looked her in the eye before.

 

The party is loud, and someone’s dropped a splash of blue vodka cruiser directly onto the couch. It looks, in part, like it has always been there. Harry wonders how she will explain this to parents who won’t understand. _I had to. She was leaving I couldn’t let her leave without showing her how much she was saying goodbye to._

That’s what this party is. A reminder. Of what she’s leaving and what Harry iss going to beg her to come back to.

Louis gives Harry’s arm a squeeze as they walk in the door, and she feels that current. The whole room makes space for her, completely unknowingly. Harry’s whole being makes space for her. And then she slips away.

The crowd welcomes her, and Harry watches as she flirts and dances and lives her way across the room. It’s crowded and Harry feels the buzz of the noise deep in her chest. There’s a little snap in her heart, a string that pulled too tight and was never let go of, until it had no choice. 

 

Harry finds Elliot, sat against her backyards fence. She think he’s looking at the stars. Or he’s asleep.

In her courage and her cowardice, fuelled by that image of Louis slipping through the crowd, away from her, she kicks out gently at his shinbone.

“Hey.” 

“Hi.” He turns his head to Harry. She’s stood in front of him, and the skimpiness of her top and skirt seemed fine when she put them on, laughing with Louis as she did their smokey eyes. Now she feels laid bare and vulnerable. She catches at the hem of her skirt, tugs it back down to mid-thigh, over her Bambi legs.

“You’ll- you’ll take care of her, yeah?” She asks, and she can feel the accusation ripple through her and out into the night. The night seems to accept it.

“Fuck yes. Of course. Gonna take care of her forever, if I can.” Comes Elliot’s response. A smile plays across his face, sincerity falling off his appearance. It makes Harry want to hug him and also hit him, or do both at the same time. Hearts and turmoils and anger. 

She stumbles. A boy, drunk and laughing has bumped into her left shoulder, and her legs search for purchase as she takes a few quick steps. She presses her palms to her thighs once she can stand straight. 

“Okay. Okay good. Yeah. Good.” Harry says it more, because if she says it enough she might agree with it. She stands there for a little in silence, watching him. Her arms come up to wrap around her stomach, because she’s cold even in a night that’s filled with the heat of people. It takes her a little while to register Elliot is looking back at her. 

“You loved her, didn’t you?” Elliot says into the night. It disarms Harry. How could he see, so clearly, when it took Harry so long to? How could he see when no one else did? And why him of all people? Why?

“Past tense excluded.” She responds. Because the night’s long and she’s so tired of having a love she can’t talk about. She laughs lightly, pushing air up from her lungs and forcing the sound, so she can at least sound like she’s more alive. 

Elliot doesn’t buy it, doesn’t smile with her. Instead. He surprises her. When she looks at him again, he has tears in his eyes. 

“I’m really sorry.” Is what he says. Over and over until Harry’s forgotten what the sentence means. When she blinks, her mascara tangles her lashes together. 

“I’d stop saying that if I were you. Nothing to apologize for, El.”

“Still I-” He begins but Harry cuts him off.

“You love her. I love her. One of us was going to end up with a broken heart. It just so happens it’s me.” 

Elliot has a reply and it’s probably going to be one that shreds her heart even more. Before he can voice it though, a girl is pressing at Harry’s arm. It’s not her. It’s Alice from chemistry class. She drawls out a hello, tongue moving slow with the weight of the vodka she’s drank. 

“Come dance.” She asks Harrry. Alice has rosy cheeks and light blonde hair and she looks nothing like the girl Harry’s trying desperately not to love, so she says yes. 

It’s the last time she ever speaks to Elliot.

 

The morning comes around and her hearts as hungover as her head but Louis’ here, curled up on one the couch next to her. 

She will leave today. And somehow Harry will attempt to keep living.

Cool glass is pressed into her hand by one of the other boys who slept on the living room floor, and she drinks deeply, feeling the cold of it rush through her. 

She can’t help but wonder where her plot is. In books, there’s a plot. And that’s how the characters get the girl. But she has no beginning. No heroic moment of action. No conclusion that doesn’t leave her heart aching. 

“This isn’t a love story.” She mutters quietly to herself. That’s the answer. She has no tremendous moment of justification, because her life is not a love story. “It’s a story of my hearts losses.” It’s a whisper, but Louis stirs next to her.

“What?” She murmurs it softly, and there’s a strand of hair that’s covering her right eye and her eyes are squinting as she tries to wake up. Pillow creases run length ways across her face, lines to time spent pressed against Harry’s shoulder. Harry’s heart crumbles, and rebuilds itself to love Louis more, to try to love her even better, in that precise moment.

“Nothing.” Harry replies, and she brushes the strand back behind Louis’ ear. She lets her fingers rest on Louis’ shoulder, for just a moment. 

“I’m leaving today.” She informs Harry, her tone very serious in that way she only has when it’s too early or too late. 

“Yeah. You are.” Harry responds, and then Louis’ tugging her down, tucking her in under her arm to that space that has never not been Harry’s. This place by Louis’ side. 

 

Harry tells her to message when she gets off the plane in Heathrow. She does.

_I think I left my heart behind_ she writes. 

Harry thinks to herself _it’s okay. Because mine went with you._

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the ending. Feel free to yell at me if you feel you need to. Still considering whether to leave this as a stand alone, or make it a chaptered fic. So let me know your thoughts. 
> 
> If you read this, I love you. I hope you enjoyed. I'm not gonna lie. It was hard on my heart to write, but I felt the words needed to exist. 
> 
> If you really truly liked it and you feel like sharing the angst or the gay or whatever, you can reblog my fic post [ here](https://love-someone-special.tumblr.com/search/the%20stars%20said%20hello%20while%20i%20said%20goodbye) and I will love you forever.  
> You can also come over to my tumblr [ and we can be best friends.](https://love-someone-special.tumblr.com/)  
> Love,  
> L. x


End file.
